FFmpeg is a complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video from the command line. As you probably know, the FFmpeg version from the official Ubuntu repositories is compiled without support for some codecs so if you want to use them, you must compile FFmpeg for yourself.

NicoLargo (who has an awasome blog by the way) has created two scripts based on a post from the Ubuntuforums (which we've quoted several times before) to automate the process of compiling FFmpeg in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.

Why 2 scripts? Because one is for installing (compiling FFmpeg) and the second one is for updating it.

Basically all you have to do is run the script (and have an active Internet connection) and it will automatically download the latest SVN version of FFmpeg, compile it, create a .deb package with checkinstall and install it. The script will also download and compile the x264 library required by FFmpeg.

Download the FFmpeg installation / update script and how to use it

You don't even have to install the dependencies for yourself, the script will do everything for you.

To download and run the FFmpeg installation script (works for both Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04), simply paste this in a terminal: